Going Back to the Beginning

Scripture Reading — Matthew 19:1-9

“Haven’t you read,” [Jesus] replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ . . . ‘and the two will become one flesh’?”
— Matthew 19:4-5

We
live in a time of great controversy. With the U.S. Supreme Court
decision declaring it unconstitutional to outlaw same-sex marriages,
it has become evident again that morality cannot be legislated, as
Billy Graham once said.

Even
the Law of Moses made some concessions to the hardness of people’s
hearts. The Pharisees tried to lure Jesus into the swamp of
discussing divorce and when it might be permissible, according to
Moses. Jesus refused to get drawn into their fruitless legal
argument. Instead, he called them back to the beginning, before the
law was given, before sin entered the world. God created us male and
female, and he gave men and women to each other in marriage. Only
within this framework of our created nature can human relationships
flourish.

But
a created nature is denied when people cease to believe in the
Creator. It’s like a carpenter stubbornly refusing to use a saw to
cut a board—and, instead, bashing away at it with a hammer.

Paul
says, “What the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by
the flesh, God did by sending his own Son” (Romans 8:3). Only new
birth in Christ is strong enough to restore our nature, whatever sin
we struggle with.

Prayer

Lord, as Augustine put it, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” Guide us all as we seek to know ourselves and how to relate to each other in love. Amen.